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Speaking skills by Nahid Esfandiari
Approaches to learning and teaching speaking .1. Speaking within an environmentalist approach learning to speak a language, in a similar way to any other type of learning, followed a stimulus-response-reinforcement pattern which involved constant practice and the formation of good habits. In this pattern, speakers were first exposed to linguistic input as a type of external stimulus and their response ''consisted of imitating and repeating such input. If this was done correctly, they received a positive ''reinforcement ''by other language users within their same environment . The continuous practice of this speech-pattern until good habits were formed resulted in learning how tospeak. Consequently, it was assumed that speaking a language involved just repeating, imitating and memorizing the input that speakers were exposed to. learners were engaged in a series of activities, such as drills and substitution exercises, which focused on repeating grammatical structures and patterns through intense aural-oral practice. .2. Speaking within an innatist approach regardless of the environment where speakers were to produce language, they had the internal faculty, or competence in Chomsky’s terms, to create and understand an infinite amount of discourse This language ability was possibly due to the fact that speakers had internalized a system of rules which could be transformed into new structures by applying a series of cognitive strategies. Given this process, speakers’ role changed from merely receiving input and repeating it, as was the view in the environmentalist approach, to actively thinking how to produce language. Consequently, it was assumed that speaking a language was a descontextualized process which just involved the mental transformation of such an internalized system of rules .3. Speaking within an interactionist approach interactionist ideas that emphasized the role of the linguistic environment in interaction with the innate capacity for language developmenLevelt Drawing on the discipline of cognitive psychology, Levelt proposed a model of speech production whose basic assumption concerned the fact that messages were “planned.” Thus, in order to be able to produce oral language, speakers had to construct a plan on the basis of four major processes: 1) ''conceptualiza tion, which involves the selection of the message content on the basis of the situational context and the particular purpose to be achieved; 2) formulation, which implies accessing, sequencing and choosing words and phrases to express the intended message appropriately; 3) articulation, which concerns the motor control of the articulatory organs to execute the planned message; and 4) monitoring, which allows speakers to actively identify and correct mistakes if necessary. According to Halliday, it could be theorized that, like children who learned to talk because language served a function for them, speakers learned to use language in order to fulfill a number of functions given a particular cultural and social context. Therefore, speaking was seen as a contextualized process in which both the context of culture ''and the ''context of situation . Thus, genre was defined as “a purposeful, socially-constructed, communicative event.” Regarding the latter type of context, the notion of register ''was elaborated considering the fact that, within the broader cultural context, speakers also varied their language depending on the social situation in which they were interacting. Consequently, their choice of a particular register was based on the interaction of three contextual variables: 1) the ''field, which concerns the topic of communication; 2) the tenor, which refers to the relationship of the participants; and 3) the mode, which involves the channel of communication. pragmatics also focused on the importance of interaction. In fact, this aspect played a very important role when dealing with pragmatics, since it was claimed that the process of communication did not only focus on the speakers’ intentions, but also on the effects those intentions had on the hearers. the development of the politeness theory was of great relevance since it described the three sociopragmatic factors which qualified a linguistic form as being appropriate. These factors involved: 1) social distance, which refers to the degree of familiarity that exists between the speaker and hearer; 2) power, which refers to the relative status of a speaker with respect to the hearer; and 3) degree of imposition, which refers to the type of imposition the speaker is forcing on the hearer. Thus, it was assumed that when one of these factors increased, speakers were expected to be more polite so that they did not threaten hearers’ face ''(i.e., a person’s feeling of self-worth or self-image) '''Teaching speaking within a communicative competence framework' .1. Discourse competence Discourse competence involves speakers’ ability to use a variety of discourse features to achieve a unified spoken text given a particular purpose and the situational context where it is produced. Such discourse features refer to knowledge of discourse markers (e.g., well, oh, I see, okay), the management of various conversational rules (e.g., turn-taking mechanisms, how to open and close a conversation), cohesion and coherence, as well as formal schemata (e.g., knowledge of how different discourse types, or genres, are organized). Making effective use of all these features during the process of producing highly active role on the part of speakers. .2. Linguistic competence Linguistic competence consists of those elements of the linguistic system, such as phonology, grammar and vocabulary, that allow speakers to produce linguistically acceptable utterances Regarding phonological aspects, speakers need to possess knowledge of suprasegmental, or prosodic, features of the language such as rhythm, stress and intonation The mastery of these three linguistic aspects (i.e., pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary) is, therefore, essential for the successful production of a piece of spoken discourse since it allows speakers to build grammatically well-formed utterances in an accurate and unhesitating way .3. Pragmatic competence Pragmatic competence involves speakers’ knowledge of the function or illocutionary force implied in the utterance they intend to produce as well as the contextual factors that affect the appropriacy of such an utterance. Thus, speakers need to master two types of pragmatic knowledge: one dealing with pragmalinguistics and the other focusing on sociopragmatic aspects On the one hand, pragmalinguistics addresses those linguistic resources that speakers can make use of to convey a particular communicative act. sociopragmatics deals with speakers’ appropriate use of those linguistic forms according to the context where the particular utterance is produced, the specific roles the participants play within that contextual situation and the politeness variables of social distance, power and degree of imposition. .4. Intercultural competence Intercultural competence refers to the knowledge of how to produce an appropriate spoken text within a particular sociocultural context. Thus, it involves knowledge of both cultural and non-verbal communication factors on the part of the speaker. Regarding the cultural factors, speakers need to be aware of the rules of behavior that exist in a particular community in order to avoid possible miscommunication. Knowledge of non-verbal means of communication (i.e., body language, facial expressions, eye contact, etc.) is also of paramount importance to communicate appropriately when producing a spoken text. Speakers need to pay careful attention to listeners’ non-verbal movements, such as their body language or whether to maintain or avoid eye contact, in order to be able to repair their intervention if something goes wrong in the course of the exchange .5. Strategic competence This competence implies speakers’ knowledge of both learning and communication strategies. On the one hand, speakers need to possess learning strategies in order to successfully construct a given piece of spoken discourse. Bygate points out the relevance of repetition ''as a strategy that may allow speakers to contribute to their oral development. Dalton-Puffer who, pays attention to the importance of ''creating purpose ''as a strategy for encouraging speaking. the use of compensatory strategies, such as circumlocution, paraphrasing, appealing for help or topic selection, assists speakers in making adjustments given an incomplete or failing interaction '''The psycholinguistics of speech processing and language development' Levelt, in various models of L1 oral interaction (his 1989 version works well for our purposes), proposes that in order to communicate speakers and listeners have to process language simultaneously in three main phases. First, they need to work on the conceptualisation of messages, in which meanings are planned and tracked; second, they operate a formulation phase, in which words are selected, sequenced, and inflected, or recognized; and thirdly, they work at articulatory production or acoustic perception. The whole is linked of course into the broader socio-cognitive context and purposes of speaker and listener. Levelt’s account links well with the picture emerging from the kind of analysis that we can derive from Bruner’s study. If speakers and listeners have to work simultaneously with new meanings, new formulations and at managing a new articulatory/ acoustic system, it makes sense to conclude that some recurrence and predictability at the conceptual level is likely to free up capacity to attend to the articulatory and formulation levels. That is, learners may then find constructive repetition useful to the extent that it can allow them to do the following. 1. Concept ualisation - Become familiar with the content of the talk - Organize the content of the talk for speech - Explore additional content to add 2. Formulation - Identify and recall relevant vocabulary and grammar for managing the content of the talk and the interpersonal functions (such as referential markers, aspect, tense and modality) - Try out alternative vocabulary and grammatical resources - Monitor the grammatical features required by the vocabulary and syntax cohesion - Develop 3. Output - Attend to speech production - Attend to interlocutors’ understanding Constructive repetition in the classroom: whole class talk, and talk on tasks the rationale for encouraging meaningful constructive repetition in the classroom is that it can help to give learners space to work on matching meanings to language, and to integrate attention to the more redundant features (especially grammatical and phonological) into their speech. One common response to the idea of constructive repetition is that it is not welcome by learners, that it does not encourage creativity, and is not appropriate for learning. . Task talk 1. External repetition Survey tasks: Interview tasks: Card games: Poster carousel: Pyramid (or “snowball”) tasks: .2. Internal repetition Picture stories: Picture and map differences tasks: Prioritising tasks: Interpretation tasks: Problem-solving tasks: .3. Internal and external repetition: three-phase “jigsaw” tasks . Whole-class talk .1. Plenary topics .2. Pre- and post-task talk .3. Classroom management How does turn-taking work? The idea of the Transition Relevance Point What signals do speakers send out when a transition relevance point iscoming up? Why turn-taking is difficult for learners Learners learn sentences Turn-taking requires active prediction of grammatical completions Turn-taking requires active listening strategies that take into account prosody Turn-taking is collaborative behaviour Speaking in different contexts requires different kinds of interactions How can learners improve their turn-taking skills? Awareness raising comes before production Introduce the learner to some facts about turn-taking Begin with structured tasks and small stretches of talk Use minimal responses to build confidence Stage the tasks so as to provide a cycle of production and selfreflection Implications for teaching speaking The language event Starting with topics Starting with texts .1. Preparation activities .2. Discourse activities .3. Language activities .4. Interaction activities '' '''Teaching speaking (Brown)' ' Oral communication skills in pedagogical research' -conversational discourse -Teaching pronunciation -Accuracy and fluency -Affective factors -The interaction effect -Questions about intelligibility -The growth of spoken corpora -Genres of spoken language. What makes speaking difficult? -clustering -Redundancy -Reduced forms -performance variables -colloquial language -Rate of delivery -stress,rhythm,and intonation -Interaction. Type of classroom speaking performance -Imitative -Intensive -Responsive -Transactional -Interpersonal -Extensive. Principles for teaching speaking skills -focus on both fluency and accuracy,depending on your objective. -provide intrinsically motivating techniques. -encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts. -provide appropriate feedback and correction. -capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening. -give students opportunities to initiate oral communication. -encourage the development of speaking strategies. What are the factors within learners that affect pronunciation -Native language -Age -Exposure -Innate phonetic ability -Identity and language ego -Motivation and concern for good pronunciation.